To add into it:

What I feel is that the present economic recession is strongly gonna prevent small firms and start-up companies from securing the private equity investment they require these days to launch, develop and grow there new products and services.

During this state, many small businesses have already proven they are very good at leading the way the are leading the economy, and because of their size, business agility and deep customer understanding, small businesses have several inherent innovation advantages over large corporations. They can now be able to more readily identify opportunities, quickly react to changing market and industry conditions, and nimbly compete with bigger competitors. Which is going to be at there advantage during this recession period.

No surprise that small business owners are becoming natural innovators. Many are in business for themselves because they knew of better ways to do business and not just to produce and promote a unique product or service. As we can follow the trends, these small business owners are closer to their customer base as active members of their communities and, as such, have a better "read" on people and can instantly adjust to their ever-changing expectations. That level of intuition and nimbleness is integral to innovation and the people behind all those bright ideas. Again, which gives them one more advantage during the recession

The final reason for small businesses be stronger when this recession is over has to do with fundamentals. There's a newfound wariness in selling too much into one industry or relying on just one customer. There's a recent understanding of the importance of putting a few bucks away to ride out the ups and downs. There's now a new appreciation for those accountants and consultants who warned people against building up too much of overhead. There's a respect for a guy who didn't upgrade his computer systems just because some propeller head told him it would "be cool to do it." We're seeing those auto dealers and parts suppliers crumble as their industry is shaken. We're watching those companies—with too much payroll, too many facilities, too high rents, too much useless yet expensive technology—go down.

Because, when things turn south, business owners that have lived through this downturn will have learned to be flexible. They will have learned how important it is to be able to cut prices or add more value to their offerings because that's what customers are going to want most of all. Many big companies, have also learnt the same and have improved there internal structure relating to the same trends.